


Dry

by yay_for_absurdism



Series: Just a Scientific Favor [2]
Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Senku being oblivious to his feelings towards Gen is my kink, homoerotic hand massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22866085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yay_for_absurdism/pseuds/yay_for_absurdism
Summary: The stone world is a lot different than the world they used to live in.Senku re-invents a luxury from the modern world as a present for Gen.
Relationships: Asagiri Gen/Ishigami Senkuu
Series: Just a Scientific Favor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643647
Comments: 8
Kudos: 341





	Dry

**Author's Note:**

> More fluff! Part three of the series will be NSFW tho.
> 
> It's not necessary to read part 1 before reading this part but it might make a bit more sense. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Senku peeked into the hut, where Gen and Ruri were sitting on the floor surrounded by materials, diligently rolling little manganese batteries. The two were chatting amicably as they worked, but both stopped when they saw Senku in the doorway. 

“Oh Senku-chan,” Gen called, smiling sweetly at him. “Come to check on your poor hardworking slaves?” 

Ruri laughed, and Senku rolled his eyes. “Lay off, mentalist.” he stepped into the hut, crouching down beside the pile of completed batteries. “Just checking how far along you guys are.” 

“At least half way done, I would say.” 

From a quick glance at the pile, Senku could definitively say that they were not. “Not quite. You’re at 348.” 

Gen looked appalled. “Impossible.” 

“One billion percent possible.” he picked up a battery and inspected it. “They look good, though.” 

Both Ruri and Gen smiled, happy to be praised. 

“Only 452 more to go, right?” 

At least Ruri had a good attitude about the whole thing. Not like Gen, who’s smile melted into a look of annoyance and purposefully exaggerated exhaustion. “Senku-chan, you’re so tewwible.” he whined, in a faux cutesy voice, “Eight hundwred is too many.” 

It wasn’t, but he didn’t think it would be useful to explain exactly why they needed this many batteries. “You’ll be fine.” he said instead. 

The mentalist pouted, turning back to the little battery-in-progress in his hand. “But my fingers are sore.” he lamented, folding up the edges of the thin zinc sheet, “And my back hurts. And my hands are so so dry.” 

“If Ruri can do it, so can you. Stop complaining.” 

Gen sighed, dramatically, setting his completed battery on top of the growing pile. As he did, Senku watched him. He had thin hands and long nimble fingers, perfect for magic tricks and small tasks like making batteries. But Senku also noted that his hands were very dry, as the mentalist had complained. Dry enough to look painful, with little cracks in the skin near his fingernails. 

Ruri finished a battery, and Senku watched her as she added it to the pile. Like Gen, her hand was thin and delicate and uncalloused. But unlike Gen, her skin looked smooth, soft, and well hydrated. 

Figures. Being the diva he was, Gen had probably had a rather rigorous skin care routine back before getting petrified. He was likely used to using hand cream and lotion and whatever other modern beauty products existed back in the day. And now, having to live a tough life in this primitive stone world with far more hands-on work than normal, his skin was not used to it. Especially in winter, where the cold and dry air did not help matters. 

But Ruri, and likely all other Ishigami Village citizens, were used to this world and had perfectly healthy skin despite the rather adverse conditions. 

“Do you need anything else, Senku?” 

He blinked, and looked up at Ruri. He’d been staring, blankly. “Oh. No. Nothing.” he stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll check on you guys later.” 

“At least help us make a couple batteries before you go.” 

Senku chuckled, waving off Gen’s plea. “You had better be done before the end of the day.” 

“The end of-?!” 

He didn’t, really, but Senku’s tone had been joking enough that surely Gen could tell he wasn’t serious. But he couldn’t help it, it was fun teasing the mentalist a bit.  
Walking back to his laboratory, Senku looked at his own hands and he found that they were also dry. Fair. His body was not yet completely acclimatized to the stone world’s living conditions. He ran his thumb across the back of his hand. Not as bad as Gen, not nearly, but his skin was rough and his knuckles were red and maybe making some hand lotion wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. 

….. 

It wouldn’t take too long, and it wasn't too hard. Over the next few days, as he collected the supplies he’d need from around the village in his few minutes of spare time. At night, while Chrome slept, he set to preparing his homemade hand lotion. 

Really, it was simple. A bit of coconut oil, a bit of sunflower oil, ground up chestnuts, an emulsifying wax made from vegetable wax treated with sodium dodecyl sulfate, and stearic acid. And a bit of cherry blossom extract, for a nice floral scent. Place the resulting off-white lotion in an airtight glass jar he had had Kaseki make during the day, and voila. Hand lotion. 

Senku placed the jar in one of his bags and, yawning, headed off to bed with a smile. 

….. 

The next night was crisp and cloudless, the moon and the late winter constellations shining bright in the inky sky. Senku headed up to his observatory, and sure enough, about a half hour later (2150 seconds to be exact) Gen joined him. The mentalist seated himself near Senku, sitting cross-legged on the floor and gazing up at the stars. 

It was unlike Gen to be relatively quiet and not bother Senku with mindless chitchat, but maybe he’d finally taken the hint that he didn’t always have to be talking in that overly expressive faux voice of his. A comfortable silence was perfectly acceptable between friends, after all. 

Somehow, though, calling them friends didn’t feel exactly right to Senku. Surely there was another word that could define them better, but despite his encyclopedic knowledge of multiple languages, he couldn’t quite find the perfect word. This was more Gen’s domain, really, he was the man with the silver tongue and a way with words after all. 

After having counted 600 seconds, Senku turned away from the telescope and reached into one of his bags. Gen looked at him, idly, and then caught the little jar that was tossed to him. Senku watched, with a small smile, as the mentalist inspected the glass jar with interest, opened it, and smelled the contents inside. 

“Smells good.” Gen murmured, “is it... lotion?” 

“Hand lotion.” he specified. “You mentioned that your hands were dry when making the batteries.” 

A myriad of expressions crossed Gen’s face, finally settling on a look of absolute joy that Senku knew he wasn’t faking. “Senku-chan!” he exclaimed, looking up at the scientist with sparling eyes. “I’m flattered! Thank you!” 

Senku shrugged, looking to the side, out at the starry sky. “You’re welcome.” 

“You're surprisingly kind, Senku-chan.” 

Not exactly kind, just acting in the most logical way. “You can’t work efficiently if you’re in pain.” 

Gen laughed, a very nice sound when he wasn’t cackling like a maniac. “How kind of you.” he dipped a finger into the jar, “Maybe don’t work me so hard next time.” 

“I don’t think I can do that.” 

“So cruel, Senku-chan.” 

Senku watched as Gen spread the hand lotion over his skin. He had one hand on the telescope, as if to say that he intended to go back to mapping the stars. And he would, later, once he made sure the lotion worked. Right now, he needed to watch Gen massage the lotion into his skin, his palms, the backs of his hands, paying special attention to his knuckles, along each finger, his thumbs, under his sleeves to his wrists. He noted Gen’s expression, a rather subdued look of happiness mixed with relief and fondness, his features softening into a relaxed smile. Good. He seemed to like it. 

Gen’s eyes flickered up to meet Senku’s gaze, and the mentalist’s lips curled upwards into a wry smile. “Yes, Senku-chan?” he asked in a sweet voice. 

“How... how’s the consistency? Not too oily?” 

“No.” Gen’s smile softened. “it’s perfect.” 

He adjusted his hand on the telescope, picking at a small knot in the wood with a nail. “Good.” 

“Can I use it on my lips? They’ve been pretty dry too.” 

Senku hadn’t noticed. No, definitely not, he of course had not noticed that in addition to having dry hands, Gen’s lips were also chapped. “Sure. Just don’t eat it.” 

“I won’t.” Chuckling, Gen put a bit of the lotion on his forefinger and spread it across his lips. Senku watched, wondering what the correlation might be between Gen’s finger’s slow movements and the sudden dryness if his own mouth. 

He turned back to his telescope, but barely a minute later Gen was calling out to him, tugging on the hem of his coat. 

“Sit down for me.” he said, softly, patting the space right beside him, and Senku did just so. Why did he always find himself indulging Gen? 

The mentalist scooted over so they were sitting right up against each other, close enough that their knees touched, and he reached out to take one of Senku’s hands in both of his. Curious, Senku let him, committing to memory the feeling of Gen’s now soft fingers running across the dry skin of the back of his hand. 

“Your hands are dry too.” the mentalist murmured. “Didn’t you test out your invention?” 

He’d been so focused on making the lotion for Gen that he hadn’t seriously entertained the thought of using the lotion himself. “No.” 

Gen’s smile widened. “Well that won’t do. Can’t have our great leader suffering from dry skin.” 

He wasn’t exactly suffering. It was barely a nuisance. But he didn’t correct Gen, he just watched as the mentalist dipped his finger back into the jar and began rubbing the lotion into Senku’s skin with slow, circular movements. 

“The consistency does seem perfect.” Senku noted. The lotion was smooth, was absorbed nicely by the skin, and did not leave an oily sheen behind. Not bad for his first foray into skin care. 

“As if the great Senku could ever make something less than perfect.” Gen teased, but the little bit of serious praise in his voice brought color to Senku’s cheeks. “Your hands feel really tight, you know.” 

“I use the muscles in my hands a lot- ow!” he yelped, as Gen dug his finger into the fleshy part of the palm. 

“Very tight.” Gen scolded. “You should massage and stretch your hands out, you know. As someone who made a living by using his hands, I know how valuable a bit of self-care can be.” 

“I’ll be fine. I might be physically weak, but I’m not a delicate little flower like-” 

“I am not delicate.” Gen huffed in response, and spread a bit more lotion on Senku’s hand as he began to massage the tight muscles. “But anyways. You shouldn’t work yourself too hard.” 

“I’m not.” 

Gen rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re working very hard. You should take care of your hands more.” 

“Says the one with skin so dry it’s cracking at the nail beds.” 

“And who’s fault is it that I’m like this?” 

He chuckled as Gen looked at him with big, sad eyes, eyes he had always told himself would never work on him. Hey, hypotheses got proved wrong all the time. It was a part of the scientific method. “Now that you have hand lotion, I can work you even harder.” he joked. 

Gen’s smile was soft as he turned his attention back to Senku’s hands. “So cruel.” 

Gen hadn’t really asked to do this, but Senku let him continue his massage anyways. His hands were sore and his muscles tight, and so it was logical something was done about the issue. And it did feel nice, it really did, and Gen was good at it. The mentalist's fingers, as dainty as they were, were far stronger than they looked. 

Senku let a soft moan escape his lips and then immediately vowed never to make that noise again. He felt his face heat up in embarrassment, and luckily Gen did him a favor by not even flashing a shit-eating grin. 

Time went on, second by second, as Gen continued to slowly and methodically massage each part of Senku’s hand. Each knuckle, each joint, the pads of his fingers, paying special attention to the large muscle at the base of the thumb. The thenar eminence, Senku said to himself, holding back a little noise of pain as Gen dug his thumb into the body of the muscle. Flexor pollicis brevis, abductor pollicis brevis, opponens pollicis. All innervated by the median nerve. 

Gen’s voice cut through his internal anatomy lesson. “For being so weak, you have surprisingly strong hands.” 

He did. A side effect of working with his hands so much. 

“And your muscles are so, so tight.” Gen continued, voice uncharacteristically soft, “If you don’t take care of them, you might have lasting damage.” 

Gen didn’t need to tell him that. He knew far more about the effects of repetitive motions on the joints of the hand than the mentalist did. And sure, sometimes his hands got sore from working, sometimes his finger joints felt stiff from holding a pen for so long when writing out plans, sometimes he got chemicals on his fingertips that would only make his skin drier. But those were small sacrifices to make for science, especially with a deadline coming up as winter drew to a close. 

Right now, the most important thing was completing the cellphone. 

Satisfied with his work, Gen dropped the first hand and Senku wordlessly offered him his other hand. Because this hand was the one farthest from Gen, he had to twist a bit, and Gen leaned in a bit, and they found themselves resting up against each other, shoulder to shoulder. It wasn’t too uncomfortable of a position, it was rather nice if anything. Hey, humans were social creatures, after all, and a little bit of physical contact was necessary to stop people from going crazy. 

Despite the cool winter air, it was warm in the observatory. Warm, and comfortable, and he didn’t even mind when Gen started talking about mindless things. The sweet, clear sound of his natural voice had somehow become one of Senku’s favorite sounds in the stone world. 

“All done.” Gen said, and Senku opened his eyes, blinking. When had he gotten so relaxed that he had closed his eyes? 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re very welcome.” The mentalist looked down at his handiwork, smiling, and then brought Senku’s hand up to his lips to place a soft kiss on the now smooth skin. “There. A magic little kiss to heal what my massage can’t.” 

Senku blinked, eyes wide, gaze fixed on Gen’s lips. He could feel color rise to his cheeks immediately, despite himself, and for no reason in particular his heartrate skyrocketed. How... how illogical. 

“Magic doesn’t exist.” he said, eventually, mouth dry. The spot where Gen’s lips had touched his hand burned despite any real physical reason for the sort of nervous response. 

“Of course not, Senku.” Gen’s smile looked sheepish. His cheeks were tinted pink and it wasn’t just from the cold air. “But I'm not a scientist, this is the best I can offer.” 

“You do more than enough.” 

“So kind, Senku-chan.” he dropped Senku’s hand and stood up, adjusting his coat around him as he did. “Well it’s quite late, I better head to bed.” he faked a yawn. “You should get some sleep too.” 

“I will.” he watched Gen head over to the door. “Don’t forget the lotion.” 

Gen looked over his shoulder, at the little jar he had left on the floor, and Senku could tell from his expression he’d left it on purpose. “If I leave it here, then you can use it too.” he said, smile just a little bit conniving. “And if my hands ever get dry again, I’ll just come back here.” 

Logically, that makes sense. This way they could both use the lotion. “Sure. Goodnight, mentalist.” 

Waving goodbye, Gen climbed down out of the observatory. After a minute of sitting there, alone, Senku got up and turned to his neglected telescope. Might as well do a bit of work before going to bed. 

He ran his thumb over the back of his hand, over the soft, slightly floral-smelling skin. He smiled. 

….. 

The next night, Gen climbed into the observatory complaining that his skin had absorbed all the moisture from the lotion like a sponge and his hands were still dry. Obviously, with skin so dehydrated and cracked, one application of hand lotion would not be enough. Especially as the cold and dry weather persisted. Even Gen, who knew little of how any of this worked, would have to know that. 

But Senku didn’t say anything. And he didn’t say anything when Gen insisted on massaging his hands again, chiding him once more for working himself so hard. 

Maybe he could make another jar of hand lotion, one that Gen could keep with him. Maybe that was a more logical option than refilling the observatory jar on a regular basis. But, then again, getting a second little airtight jar made would mean distracting Kaseki from the old man’s already busy artisanal schedule, and Senku wouldn’t be a very good leader if he needlessly piled extraneous work on his fellow citizens of the Kingdom of Science. 

No, this was definitely the most logical course of action. One billion percent. He smiled, looking up at the sky, cloudy and dark and void of the usual bright array of stars, and listened contently as Gen babbled on about some inane happening in the village that day.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a bit of Sengen art up over at https://darknebulablader.tumblr.com


End file.
